Unfinished! FMAxMortal Entgines
by Birdarrow
Summary: Technically, this should be a crossover with the Mortal Engines Quartet Hungry City Chornicles, in America. . So, I'm putting my respectful nod to Philip Reeve, from whom I am borrowing the moving city concept and design, here. NOT YET PUBLIC READY.


Ed stared in disbelief at the scruffy man across the table from him, clutching one of Winry's coffee mugs like a life raft and raving like a madman, in disbelief. Surely, none of this could be true. Flying cities!? Full of half mechanical people?! He looked over at Winry while the man was busy raving at Al, and sent her a do-you-believe-any-of-this look. And apparently, from the amount of enthusiastic nodding and jumping up and down going on, she did. He sighed, and decided to wrap things up.

Ten minutes later, the lunatic was back in the street, while his map and all the not so useful knowledge they'd managed to milk from him, remained with Ed. He turned to Winry and said, a bit grimly, "You're not seriously thinking about making me go look for this thing, are you?" She nodded enthusiastically and said, "Well DUH! If he's right about any of it, it could do great things for my automail!" She snatched the map out of his hand, scanned for a few seconds, and went on, just as boisterously as before, "It says there's it's gonna dock here, next month! We'd better start getting ready!"

~*~*~*~

Ed half-sulked in the back of the airship cabin, still mortified that there actually HAD been a docking station where the map said. And now, there was also a large, flying, automated city above them. He really couldn't have been more wrong, and it was still mortifying. Still, also really cool. He was mystified how any mention of this place had escaped him in his travels.

The air-gondola docked with a rattle, and he hopped over the side onto the dock, Al right behind him. He turned to throw the pilot his payment, only to see him grasping Winry's arm. "I hate to mention it just now, Ma'am, but they won't let you past this dock, the officials. You've got no mechanics on ya." Winry jerked free, more hurt than she'd like to admit, and snapped, "We'll see about THAT!" She stalked off after Al as Ed handed the pilot his payment, wordless, and hurried after.

However, it seemed he'd been right. At the end of the dock, Winry was arguing and struggling with several polite but firm uniformed officials. It cleared up just as Ed caught up. Winry fumed as she stormed past him. "They won't let me on without automail! See ya. Come back home first thing, with whatever useless information YOU manage to collect." Ed shook his head, slightly mystified that she'd be so rude when it wasn't anything close to his fault, and went on.

Yet for some reason, the officials also chose to accost him at the gate. "Sir… You wouldn't happen to be an automail dealer of some sort by any chance? It's just, your friend here… We don't have anything like it here, and the mayor would be quite interested…"Ed's mind whirred frantically, but it seemed that his mouth needed no such time. "Absolutely. You wouldn't mind telling me the way to his residence, would you?"

Al looked remotely horrified, but managed to hold his tongue. Brother usually had a plan, and it was also usually not a good idea to get in the way of said plan.

Moments later, after being hurried through a strange city so fast it seemed to blur around them, they where sitting on the patio of a lavish estate, at the very top of the city, holding drinks of a sort Ed couldn't quite identify. In front of them sat a very fat man, bulging out of his tuxedo, undoubtedly the mayor. And he was a rather stereotypical one at that. But not even the fat could hide the cruelty that lurked in his face and eyes, and it made Ed vaguely nervous. Fortunately, he was spared the trouble of thinking of something polite to say. "So, you're automail dealers, are you? Where are your wares?" "Not here yet. They're to arrive in a few days. I thought I'd scope out the city in the mean time. See how business looks." The mayor nodded thoughtfully, and just then, a girl came up, carrying a tray of strange pastries. The mayor took his absently enough, managing to totally ignore her, but Ed couldn't take his eyes off her. Desperately as he tried, he couldn't find any flesh showing on the bronze-faced apparition, holding the tray easily in her slender automail fingers. A glance down showed that she was also entirely mechanical in her legs, at least from the knee down. And it was quite possibly the thinnest, lightest looking automail he'd ever seen. Disjointed thoughts about Winry and automail whirred through his mind, but he didn't have the time to properly asses any of them. The mayor had noticed his gawking.

"Ah, interested in the slaves, are ya? I must admit, I've made something special of them. Nothing showing but the automail. Mechanics are always so much lovelier than girls, and it seems you'd agree. And that's some fine automail they've got on. Cost a fortune, but worth it, to be able to look at it in motion every day." Ed interrupted the wave of nausea rising within him, and carefully cut off the Mayor's babble. Voice carefully neutral and careless, unconcerned as he could make it, he said, "Is she for sale? I've got a friend back home, who could use a girl like her." The mayor puffed up his lips, obviously thinking how to best extort them, while Al stared on in mute horror. Ed sent him a quick I'll-explain-later look, just as the mayor finally spoke again. "Normally, no. A real investment, my girls. But for such a potentially… useful visitor to my city, I'll allow it."

~*~*~*~

Ed leaned on the table, head in hands, trying to think of exactly how to explain this one to Winry, while his purchased slave girl wandered around the room idly, followed by Al. At least HE had taken it relatively well, once he'd explained himself. However, Winry seemed determined not to. "So, why is there a half-mechanical girl wandering around my kitchen? Felt like you needed a little slave girl to amuse you, did you?!" "Winry, if you'd just let me EXPLAIN!" "Why do you NEED to?! You bought a SLAVE, Ed!" Finally, he stood up in a rush, slapping the table. "Just let me explain, DAMNIT! I KNOW she's a slave, that's the whole goddamned point! I COULDN'T just leave her there to live like that, and it was the only thing I could do. And she's wandering around the kitchen because I'm not sure what else to do with her, and I thought you might like to look at the automail." By then, he'd collapsed back into the chair, drained from the entire day. Winry said quietly, "I see." She stood up herself, slowly, exhaustion obvious, "I see. I suppose I'd better get her cleaned up, then."

She stood up, and gaped. Al had his hands around her waist, and was trying to pull her off a doorframe, struggling mightily. She was grasping so hard that there where wood shavings on the floor, automail visibly straining, bronze mask as grim as always, but blood coming from around the edges. Winry whirled around on Ed and said, "That's not her real face?!" "Obviously! How the hell was I to know?! She didn't exactly point it out!" Al shouted at the same time, "A little help, guys!" Ed sighed, and walked over and pried the girl's fingers off the doorframe, amazed at the holes she'd managed to leave in the doorframe.

Why, was the question. He tentatively pried the mask off her face, glad she'd offered no resistance, to find himself staring into a face just as defiant as the mask she'd been wearing, startling red eyes locked on him. He gaped slightly, amazed to find that graceful face behind that solemn mask, beautiful even with the scars around the edges, where the mask had obviously chafed. And, spurred on by that, he found himself properly looking at her for the first time. A red braid, of a shade uncomfortably close to blood, tumbled down her shoulders, the end an explosion of curls. She was wearing a powder blue Chinese style dress, that extended down to her knees, with sleeves down to her elbows. The pale color made her look deathly pale, and sickly. He blushed a little, embarrassed to be caught gawking, and pulled her to her feet, asking, "So, what where you doing that to the door for, anyway?" to cover his folly, absolutely sure that Winry had noticed and hoping she wasn't feeling particularly wrathful just now.

The red eyed, sulky girl, said, voice husky at first, but almost as delicate as Al's, though a good deal more feminine, "There are mechanical things in there. I wanted to play with them, but he wouldn't let me," She said, nodding at Al as he spoke, before going on, "Said somebody named Winry would be mad about it. Though I can't see why…" Winry gawked at her for a second before bursting out, "Damn right about it! Automail parts aren't playthings, and they're not yours anyway!" She snorted, slim metal arms crossed over her chest, and said, "Well isn't that obvious? Perhaps tinker would have been a better word… And of course I don't own them. I don't own anything. I'm property myself." She glanced briefly at Winry, taking a break from glaring insistently at both Al and the wall, alternately, and added, managing to make it sound like an insult, "Ma'am."

Ed gaped at her, accompanied by Winry, while Al just looked resigned. Not what he'd been expecting from a slave. Then, he sighed, somehow managing to do it in time with Winry, and she took a step forward, "Fine, fine. Let's… Just get you cleaned up. I'm sure they didn't take care of their slaves properly there."

~*~*~*~

When the girl had come down again, Ed was ready for her. Except he really hadn't expected her to get so much prettier so quickly. The dirt scrubbed off, she was much paler, the brown tint gone from her skin, leaving only a light tan, and a small spray of freckles across her nose. She was wearing a set of Winry's old mechanic's clothes, now too small on her, but still baggy on the girl. The standard black tube top, which seemed to fit her just fine, and loose brown cargo shorts that just brushed the beginnings of her automail. She sat down across from him, still silent and glum, bright red hair flowing free out of a ponytail, foaming across her shoulders. He blinked a couple times, struggling to recover himself, and let Al start out while he did. It was a good thing Al didn't have the same teenage weaknesses as he did. Otherwise, they'd probably have trouble from it at some point.

"Umm… What's your name?" "Ada, to the best of my recollection." Ed chimed in, "Ada, we need to know what was going on with that floating city. Some of it seemed a little… Fishy." He paused for a moment, leaning back, lost in thought, and finally, leaned forward again and said, "Let's start with you. How'd you get to be a slave?" She gave a small toss of her long, curly hair before answering, voice carefully emotionless, and obviously so, "My parents died when I was almost too young to remember them. I was about six, I think. So I was sold into slavery. It's the way of the city, you see. I'd been working for the mayor ever since. Until you bought me, that is." Ed nodded, absorbing it, and at the same time, Al did his best to ask delicately, though he botched it a little… "So… ummm… How'd you loose your limbs?" She stared straight past them as she said, face still mask like, "The mayor. He hates it if any of his girls aren't at least partly mechanical. So, he cut my arms and legs off at the first joints, and replaced them with automail. Though to guests like you, he likes to invent some story to make himself sound heroic and generous. It's the way of politicians, after all."

This time, both Ed and Al could simply stare at her, and verbal chaos broke out for a few minutes as three fourths of the room's population began spouting nonsense about chaos in their surprise. Finally, everyone settled down again, and


End file.
